George C. Edwards’s Prisoners of their Premises: How Unexamined Assumptions Lead to War and Other Policy Debacles tackles a central question in the study of foreign policy making: how do we explain decisions that have observably catastrophic outcomes? Edwards’s argument is that a vital step in the making process–problem identification–provides significant purchase on this question….
Tag: Korean War
H-Diplo | RJISSF Review Essay 109: Greentree on Stoker, Why America Loses Wars
With war and the prospect for more upon the world, this may seem an inopportune time to delve into a book titled Why America Loses Wars. It is not. Wars shape our world, threatening a descent into chaos while promising a better peace. China’s rise, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s revanchism, the US involvement in the…